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Recently, The Guardian's film blog ran a small piece highlighting the trailer for Wes Anderson's upcoming -- and for Anderson fans, greatly anticipated -- Moonrise Kingdom (which I haven't seen but will review soon). With perhaps a mixture of love and mockery, the writer checked off the usual Anderson tropes: "Every box is ticked: Schwartzman, Murray, pint-sized precocity, a retro palette, distracted dads, slo-mo hand-holding, fab hats, dead-centre deadpan," and then asked readers to weigh in on what they thought. As you can imagine, opinions were split between excitement and annoyance. One of the more amusing comments came from a reader who stated, "You can tell this is a discussion about Wes Anderson movies when it boils down to the fact that he's definitely using a different font this time."Ah, yes, Anderson's attention to detail -- the clothes, the pastel colors, the walkie- talkies, megaphones and record players, the ... Dalmatian mice.

Those things that many critics have decried as an addiction to quirk, annoyingly twee, an overly precious and obnoxious palette that values style over substance -- a critique that's decidedly more tired and lazy than anything Wes Anderson's ever done.

In fact, nothing Wes Anderson creates is lazy. Even when you spy a kind of cinematic reference (I see much from Hal Ashby's Harold and Maude -- particularly Ashby's "Trouble" sequence), there's always a twist. It takes an aggressive stylist, innovative soul and industrious spirit to create Margot Tenenbaum, raccoon eyeliner, mink coat, Izod dress, missing finger and all. She is singular Anderson (you actually forget Gwyneth Paltrow is playing her), not only for her personal style, but for her bittersweet beauty, her sad, fatherless childhood, her past triumphs, future failures and her deadpan demeanor, something that fills his frame so perfectly that she becomes overwhelmingly touching. I challenge anyone to get through Nico's haunting "These Days" without, at least once, thinking of Margot Tenenbaum stepping off the Green Line bus. It's Nico's curious mixture of deadpan and emotion, of course, and so perfectly merged with deadpan, emotional Margot. And yet, she's likable, intelligent and funny too. In short, she is style and substance. She's not merely a cardboard cut-out of quirk -- she's an interesting, mysterious woman, and nothing you've seen in any other film, and she's now so iconic that no other filmmaker could create her. She practically carries her own copyright. And yet, we recognize her, somewhere, in some kind of buried childhood memory.

Which leads me to one essential element of Wes Anderson: nostalgia. And not just nostalgia for nostalgia's sake, collecting memories like Star Wars action figures encased in original packaging, never to be played with. No, he's getting at something deeper and more melancholic: those feelings of childhood that are both beautiful and painful because we can only access them through memories, pictures, music and our father's clunky old dial phone (something you'll see in an Anderson movie, no matter what year it is).

And that kind of obsolete technology (old television sets tied to radiators, VHS tapes, records) can fuse with our past movie watching experiences with a kind of phantom palpability. Recently I re-watched Midnight Cowboy, and became misty over, not just the tragic story and of course Harry Nilsson's beautiful "Everybody's Talkin,'" but that the picture brought me back to a childhood memory that was both in touch with and removed from reality. I had to question where that flood of memories was coming from: Watching the movie at home from school on TV? The idea of that kind of New York City -- the New York I never experienced because the movie was released before I was born -- but those who lived there certainly did experience? And harshly remember? And then, the gentle, nearly child-like love of these two men that I figured, even at my young age, was also sexual? As gritty as Midnight Cowboy is, it does have an innocence about it. And though it's far grimier than anything Wes Anderson has ever created, I thought of Anderson. Joe Buck and Ratso Rizzo could fit into Anderson's universe, albeit with a different kind of ending. John Schlesinger's bus death is more grindingly, powerfully tragic than any of Anderson's mournful finales, but I can see Joe Buck getting on with with his life in an Anderson-like Florida too. The idea of Joe Buck attempting the kind of optimism and dreams many of Anderson's characters want to have (like Max Fischer), sans Ratso is heartbreaking in itself. And I love that that there was no direct homage (save for, maybe, Owen Wilson's cowboy-clad Eli Cash in The Royal Tenenbaums) that brought me to that thought. It was a swirling cinematic idea and repressed childhood memory, but pushed to the present by Anderson in cohoots with myself. It almost sounds insane. Oh, the magic of movies.

It's not surprising that most of Anderson's adults act much like children -- or rather, act like what we, as children, might have imagined we'd be like as adults. We'd hail dented gypsy cabs in New York, travel on the Darjeeling Limited (for me and my love of train travel this was extra special) with our siblings or, as in The Life Aquatic, become Jacques Cousteau Zissou explorers, calling our competition "my nemesis." It's a lovely presage that the book Max Fischer checks out in Rushmore is "Diving for Sunken Treasure" by Jacques Cousteau.

That's not to say Anderson's films are adolescent. There's too much adult reflection and seriousness within his meticulously art-directed frames. Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) may be a lovable, nattily dressed deadbeat dad, but he's also, eventually, a regretful man who truly loves his family. The shot of the one son who resents him most, the business-minded, now excessively safety-oriented Chaz (a red tracksuit-clad Ben Stiller), sitting teary-eyed with a vulnerable and dying Royal in the back of an ambulance hits the viewer with such a powerful punch that you are smacked into the reality of loss. It's so emotional that, for some of us, you can feel it in your stomach and without warning, you spontaneously sob. Your dad may have been horrible, but he's still your dad. That's not just style. And though it's universal, particularly among so many kids of divorce, it's not easy sentimentality either.

But back to his style and signature. Anderson loves his slow-mo shots (and montages) set to music (and with great taste -- the Kinks, the Who, Brian Jones-era Rolling Stones, Love, David Bowie, David Bowie in Portuguese, Nico) to the point where it drives some viewers crazy. Or, in the case of an Indian boy's funeral in The Darjeeling Limited, offends them (I don't agree with that critique and find the slow-mo during that tragic moment powerful, allowing us to drink in all of what's happening -- for all of the characters). Anderson's slow-mo has become so recognizable that a savvy YouTuber created a video comprised of Wes Anderson slo-mo shots, all set to Ja Rule. I have no problem with Ja Rule, but it's not quite the same as Max Fischer emerging from an elevator to the Who's "A Quick One, While He's Away."

And then there's the God's-eye view. Anderson adores that shot with an almost fervid fetishization tantamount to Hitchcock's love of blondes. Books, letters, laminated lists, even Richie Tenenbaum's bleeding, suicidal wrists are shot from above. For me, each method serves its purpose with potent panache. A slow-mo allows us to drink in the scene and even feel placed in the action. The omnispective POV has us floating above it, like a memory. Who stamps library books anymore? It's perfect to view this outdated act from above, like how we often dream -- out of body: something dislodged, both spatially and temporally, from the past.

It's interesting, then, that Anderson's still startlingly wonderful debut feature, Bottle Rocket, finds his most compelling character planning for the future. Owen Wilson's Dignan has listed a detailed 50-year plan of goals for his small crew (namely his best friend Anthony, played by his brother Luke) that involves petty criminal shenanigans, like robbing a book store (with unfortunate small bags), family homes ("You took the earrings, Dignan? ") and a cold-storage facility, leading to Dignan's valiant efforts to save crew member Apple Jack, and to his swift arrest. Though Anderson would go further with set design and detail, Dignan is an Anderson (and Wilson) creation through and through -- his defining moment in which viewers were absolutely disarmed by a character and actor (Wilson brought a unique style and wit that has been part of Anderson's universe since). And further, in an era of Tarantino rip-offs (the 1990s), we were absolutely struck by the movie's inherent sweetness.

Dignan, like Anderson, is thoroughly well-organized, micromanaging the kind of world he wants to live in, from his yellow jumpsuit (he's ordered a dozen of them) to the correct way Anthony should escape from a mental institution. And yet, in the real world, Dignan, like all of us, just can't achieve that kind of perfection, which by film's end is overwhelmingly poignant. The ever-enthusiastic Dignan (no matter what) jokes (perhaps half-jokes) from the prison yard something like an action movie shoot: "Here are just a few of the key ingredients: dynamite, pole vaulting, laughing gas, choppers -- can you see how incredible this is going to be? -- hang gliding, come on!" Is this Dignan? Or Wes Anderson? Pity Dignan couldn't have become a movie director. And, damn. Dignan's final bit of goofy bravery set to "2000 Man" -- it's so funny and beautiful and sad and perfect: "They'll never catch me... because I'm fucking innocent."

So, back to Anderson's critics. When J.D. Salinger passed away, I wrote a piece for MSN and here about his influence on cinema (even as Salinger, save for one bad attempt, never wanted any movies made of his work). Wes Anderson was a major part of that piece, and I pointed out that critics of Salinger slapped Anderson with similar derision. Both have been called overly precious, overly privileged and overly adoring of characters living in a vacuum of nostalgia and sweetness, dislocated from reality. Well, what, exactly, is wrong with nostalgia and sweetness? Especially if it's crafted with genuine heart and individual éclat?

And Anderson's distinct dislocation, inertia and wistfulness -- from the Tenenbaums to the Foxes -- is part of the point. When Anderson sets it beautifully, like when Margot and Richie Tenenbaum tearfully discuss his suicide attempt and profess their love for each other in their tent while listening to the Stones' "She Smiled Sweetly," Anderson allows the record to keep playing, and so when we hear, up next, "Ruby Tuesday," the entire moment is filled with such bittersweet beauty, that you can't help but be moved -- and not by a suicide necessarily -- more a memory of a perfect little moment.

We do have those in life -- even when they're sad ones. As Henry Allen wrote in his remembrance of Salinger, "Hemingway was a writer who made unhappiness beautiful. Salinger took it a step further -- with the same uncanny ability to evoke the world his characters move through, he made it a virtue." The same could be said of Anderson. That, and as Dignan so poignantly stated, "I'm not always as confident as I look." None of us are.

Last night, while watching “Mad Men," a thought occurred to me -- where on earth is actor Patrick Warburton? Yes, Patrick Warburton. Please don't forget our fine character actors. Elaine's boyfriend on "Seinfeld." The blue-suited lead of the smart and funny "The Tick," a frequent voice for animated features. An actor with a whole lot of bravado, oddball sexy appeal and mystery. He’s both of this world and entirely retro. Or, perhaps, not of this earth. There is no actor like the great Patrick Warburton.

We see this best in Warburton’s single-minded, yet weirdly emotional, mother-loving, car salesman turned moviemaker in the outstanding, and outstandingly strange, "The Woman Chaser" -- a movie too few have experienced.

A pity. And a pity that Warbuton isn’t cast enough in film and television. And if a show could use the Warburton bizzaro-swagger, it is "Mad Men" -- he would inject some handsome, barrel chested, devilish power and left-field humor without being entirely arch. You never know what Warburton is up to -- it's not easy irony -- he's too strange for that. Wonderfully strange. He's just as he is -- a man out of time and yet, timeless. He'd fit right in and jive up the joint without feeling forced or silly. He wouldn't need to change his speaking style, he wouldn't need to join the Hari Krishna's to appear different and he'd never need to arch a brow. And in inspired moments, he's a madman. Matthew Wiener, are you listening?

So with that, I'm returning to a movie in which Warburton excels. The underlooked, frequently brilliant “The Woman Chaser”(from 1999) -- a film that showcases this captivating son of a bitch and does the source material (Charles Wileford’s novel of the same name) proud.

Here’s more:

You can’t quite get your hands around The Woman Chaser, and that’s all for the good. It’s a heap of contradictions that absolutely refuses to be compartmentalized. You’ll either love this slice of humorous sociopathic angst (and yes, in The Woman Chaser, there is such a thing as sociopathic angst) or (as some critics did) attempt to corner it as something it’s not. What it is, is vintage Willeford (who was also adapted in two other long-underrated, now classics -- Monte Hellman’s Cockfigher and George Armitages’s Miami Blues) and so true to the author that his widow approved every frame of this underseen treasure.

Directed by Robinson Devor, whose only credit up to this point was a wonderfully weird 30-minute documentary about Hollywood billboard phenom Angelyne (he has since directed Police Beat which I need to see and the infamous horse sex documentary, Zoo. You can’t say Devor isn’t multi-faceted) The Woman Chaser is something of a lost film, or at least tough to find (I cherish my VHS copy). Released in 1999 and, according to my colleague Sean Axmaker, a small amount of DVDs were pressed, exclusive to Hollywood Video. And even those few are sadly out of print. For whatever reason the picture hasn’t been properly released, regrettable for all those viewers who missed the movie in theaters. And that’s too bad -- it’s an unnerving, hilarious slice of Los Angeles life and wildly unique on top.

As stated earlier, adapted from pulp novelist Willeford’s 1960 novel of the same name and filmed (gorgeously) in a black and white transfer from a color print, The Woman Chaser is faithful to its beautifully seedy genre. It’s serious, to a point, but never plays it straight, always aiming for a cockeyed joke that’s both reflexive and perfectly in tune with the picture. And yet, somehow it manages to refrain from something that’s especially annoying when it comes to film noir (one of my favorite film genres) -- tired ironic send-up. The film is not entirely, a comedy. I can only imagine how tough it was to craft such an arch, subversive film that remains to the very last frame, curiously understated, never making fun of its characters (not really, more exposing all of their varied and frequently touching flaws), but unafraid to reveal how completely out of control they will become.

The story begins circa 1960 with grifter Richard Hudson (Warburton) fresh from San Francisco, purchasing a used car dealership in his hometown of Los Angeles. He’s a gifted, unscrupulous salesman (“anyone and everyone can be bought” he believes) who makes his dealers wear Santa Claus suits in the middle of summer. Richard preys on people’s vulnerabilities with a twisted logic that’s too complex to classify as mere evil -- it's some personality quirk that’s all his own (for instance, he seduces an old woman collecting pennies for the church to see if she could be bought, and also beds a teenager with the intent to harshly educate her). With obvious Oedipal fixation, he moves back home with Mother (Lynette Bennett), an aging beauty living in a Sunset Blvd. style mansion with her washed up Hollywood director husband, the gentle milquetoast Leo Steinberg (a great Paul Malevitz).

After a delicate, then frenzied (and hilarious) session of ballet dancing with Mother (one of the picture’s strangely beautiful but bizarre highlights), Richard comes to the conclusion that his life is meaningless unless he creates something ("Isn't making money the reason for existence?"). More specifically if he creates a work of art. Since other arts take too much time and skill to learn, Richard reckons that writing and directing a movie is just the thing. Convincing Leo to back him, he concocts the very inspired Detour like, Murder By Contract inspired (that spare guitar), B-noir entitled, The Man Who Got Away, a grim, existential tale about a truck driver who flees his life, then accidentally kills a little girl and is chased down by a vigilante mob. You’re never allowed to see the entire picture, but what you do witness looks to be soulful, gritty brilliance. I want to see this movie.

Releasing the picture proves difficult as it clocks in at 63 minutes (too short for theaters and too long for television), but Richard will not compromise -- he will neither cut nor lengthen the thing and so, well, I won’t reveal what happens. Let’s just say, it’s quite dramatic.

The actions and philosophizing of Richard moving from conception to actual filmmaking are too intriguing to spoil, but one thing is for certain: Richard is a born auteur. He’s also a cold-blooded narcissist (“To me!” he toasts while dipping in a pool) but a sensitive lug in moments of stress—somehow the son of a bitch cries, endearingly.

But then that could be an act -- you have no idea with this character. Thanks to the refreshingly untamed Warburton and his bombastic, staccato, yet wry and enigmatic performance, the picture delivers an off-kilter world where the absurd, scummy and sublime intermingle right on the edge. His performance lives in a movie that reveals a fascinating, yet strangely familiar insanity true to the spirit of Los Angeles where you can feel violated, entertained and inspired in the same twenty minutes.

Sophisticated and kookily innovative, Devor’s direction isn’t simply retro-nostalgia showing off its lovely mid century modern architecture and kitsch (though that is lovingly filmed). No, the City of Angels is a slick, rotting kingdom of scrubbed close-ups, skewed angles -- a twisted, cocky and wormy land that will fight your creativity and vision at any chance. With that, violently defending your work (which Richard does -- and that’s all I will say) is the wicked solution but, in the end, oddly inspirational.

Mad Men needs him. He’s sardonic, and he gets the era. He can play serious, but is unafraid of being disarmingly funny and sociopathic -- often at the same time. And he’d look damn good in the era’s suits. And there’s… Joan. And if Don Draper returns to his wicked, wicked ways, well, Megan might come a calling. After all she’s an actress. The Girl Who Got Away? Warburton could handle that.

Mommy? Oh my... Katharine Hepburn as Violet Venable. Hepburn is at her most deliciously vicious here, playing a New Orleans widow unnaturally obsessed with her poet son Sebastian, who died (rather dramatically) while vacationing with her beautiful niece Catherine (a fantastically gorgeous Elizabeth Taylor -- that white bathing suit...). This Violet is a Blanche DuBois gone to demon seed. Ditching those fur pieces and lamps draped with scarves, Violet's a Southern Belle who faces aging by diving straight into Diabolatry. And with that, and with my love for Tennessee Williams, cinema and fascinating female characters, I can only shout out a Hell, Yes with a Bon Scott call of Hey, Satan! Violet is impeccably formal, insanely, yet, almost wonderfully eccentric if she weren't so rotten (she descends to greet people in a grand elevator and has a garden filled with creepy plants that she talks about... a lot) and then she's just downright depraved; her fixation on Sebastian (who, if you've not seen the movie, finds himself cannibalized) is a good ol' Oedipal situation. Or... is there an even more specific complex where the mother yearns to sleep with her homosexual son? Or at least procure for him? What was Joe Orton's mum like? I will research...

Memorable Quote: There are quite a few -- this is after all, Tennessee Williams, with a screenplay by Gore Vidal. I'm fond of Violet's little mommy chestnut, just what you want to hear when you bring her breakfast in bed on Mother's Day: "Most people's lives, what are they but trails of debris - each day more debris, more debris... long, long trails of debris, with nothing to clean it all up but death." But I get a head spinning thrill (and horror) from "Help!" -- Catherine's blood-curdling scream once her head doctor (a sad-eyed but down to business Montgomery Clift) gets to the root of what just happened suddenly last damn summer. Christ.

Meanest Moment: There's many, but I'm going with forcing the distressed but clearly not insane Catherine as a candidate for a lobotomy just so she won't spill the beans over Violet's sick doings with her late son (who perhaps, just perhaps, could have enjoyed a nice time on holiday, picking up good looking fellas and indulging some romance had homosexuality not been such an issue). That aside, thank goodness pretty Catherine benefits from her supportive shrink (Oh, Monty...) to get to the bottom of this poisoned well. And diseased womb.

Maternal Comeuppance? Indeed. Catherine does not get the lobotomy, and Violet's weirdness goes beyond her passion for Venus flytraps, of course. Catherine and doctor walk off hand-in-hand. Things didn't end as well for son Sebastian, alas. But still. For Mama Hepburn, I clap my hands together like Sandy Dennis hollering for "Violence" in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? "Violet!"

So, again... Happy Mother's Day!

Note: Young Guy Maddin played Montgomery Clift's Dr. Cukrowicz in Winnipeg's Black Hole Theater production of "Suddenly, Last Summer." This bit of history been a thrill for me, and an endless nightmare for him, especially when I start conversations with: "My son, Sebastian and I constructed our days. Each day we would carve each day like a piece of sculpture, leaving behind us a trail of days like a gallery of sculpture until suddenly, last summer."

Rock pioneer Link Wray, most famous for "Rumble" was boss in every era.

In 2000, at a small club in Portland, Oregon I witnesses this for myself. The half Shawnee shaman, at the age of 71, performed one of the greatest shows I've ever seen in my life. Some time had passed since Quentin Tarantino featured Wray's famed "Rumble" in Pulp Fiction, so the "Rawhide" rocker attracted a smaller crowd this time around. The better for all of us. The crowd consisted of die-hard Rockabillies, a smattering of older people, varied Wray fans, me and my little sister. I stood in the front, hands on stage, and watched one of rock n' roll's most influential guitar Gods work his power -- taking all that is raucous and dark and soulful and yes, light, and hypnotizing us. There were no bad vibes in that cramped crowd of potential rowdies. Moving on stage like the half-Shawnee he was, he worked us as if performing some kind of Native American rock and roll rain dance, while still playing down and dirty -- music that made us feel alive and real and raw. And then dreamy -- a seedy, sexy, soulful, demonic, beatific dream.

And then this wide awake fever dream became so tangibly real -- a moment that's remained a highlight of my life: Link Wray handed me his guitar in the middle of "Rumble." Yes, he actually, mid performance, leaned over from the stage, and placed his guitar in my hands. And that devil (an angel in disguise) did so with a grin on his face. I was holding Link Wray's guitar! I didn't scream or cry or crumble into Beatlemania hysterics, instead I held it as long as I could and then, in a trance-like state, passed that sacred idol through the crowd. This was to be shared. And Link just took it all in -- jovial and delighted as the awed audience passed it along, and with great, religious respect. He trusted us. It was safely returned back to Wray who, in spite of his dark image (Wray was still one of the greatest looking leather clad rockers ever) and menacing sound, smiled broadly. I still have his pick, stashed safely in my jewelry box.

Sadly, Link Wray, born May 2, 1929, passed away in 2005. I wish he was still with us. Wray brought so much to American rock music. Distortion, feedback, the power cord and a raw, dirty, crunchy, heavy sound that everyone from Poison Ivy to Pete Towsend to Jimmy Page to Neil Young credit as most influential. Some even claim him the father of heavy metal. "Ace of Spades," "Jack the Ripper," the brilliant "Rumble" (watch Wray rock the ever-loving hell out of that one here) and one of my favorites "Comanche" are just a few of his classics. And then there's "Rawhide" as seen here on "American Bandstand."

The way Dick Clark mentions "Rumble" cracks me up. He says: "They've had one very big hit record gone by, a thing [at first I thought he said 'I think'] called 'Rumble.'" Quite a thing, Mr. Clark. And a think! That was a powerful hit. I've always loved that in 1957, "Rumble" was banned from a number of radio stations -- banned for its menacing suggestion. There were no lyrics! This is how complicated and primal and mysterious his music could be. And a true testament to his art.

And, as I stated from the outset, Wray rocked in every era. I revere all of his work (I especially love his Dylan covers -- "It's All Over Now Baby Blue" and "Girl from the North Country") and I love his unique singing voice -- that cracked voice -- a voice I hear in Dylan or Jagger screaming rough or even in Van Morrison -- but so distinctly Link Wray. His baritone, just slightly, beautifully broken, crooning through Elvis' "Love Me Tender" is plaintive and lovely. And his "Girl from the Northern Country," released in 1964, feelss so both ahead of its time and timelessly intimate -- it's so gravelly gorgeous, so different, so... Link. Wray really admired Dylan, but I prefer Wray's strikingly raw and emphatically romantic version:

And I get so damn excited when I hear what he was up to in the 1970s. Not enough '70s Wray is discussed or heard. Wray excelled with his seemingly smaller records in an era of enormous Stones and Zep releases with some gritty LPs that feel ahead of their time then and now. The Black Keys and Jack White would kill to imbide whatever magical potion Wray was concoting. And as much as I respect the Keys and White, they'll never achieve the alchemy of Wray. And they would surely agree.

I could ramble forever about his '70s records (and I won't even begin to touch the utter ridiculousnes that this man has not been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame), but here's one track: Wray’s “I’m So Glad, I’m So Proud” from his 1973 album “Beans and Fatback.” Recorded in 1971 by Link’s brother Vernon, in a chicken shack (Link’s Three Track Studio) on Wray’s Accokeek, Maryland farm, this is the shit. My favorite ’70s Wray is his self titled “Link Wray,” featuring the masterpiece “La De Da” (a song the “Exile”-era Stones had to have heard) but this one, this one is a whole lot of hot damn. And thene there's ... good God! "Fire and Brimstone," from 1971. Screw Clapton. Link Wray is God.